A rare event becomes ordinary to the person it happens to.

Statistics live at a distance. From inside the event, a one-in-a-thousand thing is simply what is happening, filling the whole of your life, with no comfort available from how rarely it occurs. The rarity was always a statement about the population, never a promise to any particular person inside it.

This cuts two ways worth remembering. When you are the one it happened to, you are allowed to stop measuring your reaction against the odds. And when you speak to someone in the middle of something rare, skip the reassurance about how uncommon it is.